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I don't know about you, but I can't wait for this election to be concluded. Maybe it's because I live in the New York City metro and we've been force-fed a dose of "real life"--right up in our face--this week, maybe its because we all need to focus on genuinely important priorities, but for whatever reason I have "2012 Fatigue." As I pen these thoughts the candidates are in the midst of making their closing arguments. President Obama is manically trying to defend turf in Colorado, Virginia, and Florida, and Governor Romney is surging with an expanding map in Pennsylvania,...

It would be dark soon at the Coney Island Houses, the fourth night without power, elevators and water. Another night of trips up and down pitch-black staircases, lighted by shaky flashlights and candles. Another night of retreating from the dark.

STAMFORD, Conn., Nov. 3, 2012 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- More than five million bottles of water will be arriving this weekend and early next week in New York and New Jersey communities hard hit by Hurricane Sandy. Approximately 100 trucks will be converging on the region from Nestle Waters North America (NWNA) plants in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Texas and Maine, where employees are working tirelessly to meet the acute needs of storm victims. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the New York Office of Emergency Management made the request for bottled water to meet immediate need in the region.... Nestle Waters...

US Government Invited Brazilian Psychic to Avert Sandy By Julio Severo After Superstorm Sandy, everybody knows what happened: tragedy. What many ignore is what happened before: spiritual tragedy. According to Istoé, a major Brazilian magazine, Brazilian psychic Adelaide Scritori had travelled in a hurry to the Caribbean Islands by invitation from the US government and an insurance company in New York. Her purposed mission was to weaken Superstorm Sandy. Adelaide Scritori Her husband, who is also the spokesman for Coral Snake Chief Foundation in Brazil, said that her mission was a success, because without her intervention the superstorm would...

In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, it seems to be pretty clear that residents of New York City and the surrounding areas could use all the help they can get. However, a Davisburg man said some people in the area are more interested in “protecting their turf” than in distributing those supplies to the masses. Mike James, an independent trucker, said he and three other truckers were told to haul a load of transformers to the city to replace equipment anticipated to be lost in the storm. James, two men from Holly and a Flint man arrived in the city...

Hurricane Sandy wreaked havoc across the Eastern Seaboard, from North Carolina to New England, knocking down power lines, and flooding coastal communities. Hardest hit were New York and New Jersey, leaving more than a million residents without power and many without homes.   IBEW members from throughout the country are pitching in to restore power and fix damaged infrastructure. “Devastating,” Wall, N.J., Local 1289 Business Manager Edward Stroup, III, says about Sandy. Stroup represents workers at Jersey Central Power and Light – a subsidiary of FirstEnergy Corp. – which provides power to more than 1 million central New Jersey residents....

But the key question is does it have enough for flood damage? Sandy has flooded thousands of homes in its devastating path, and estimates are that damages will in the billions of dollars. FEMA, which runs the federal flood insurance program, has to pick up the tab. But FEMA already owes $18 billion to the Treasury Department, thanks to Hurricane Katrina. Currently, insurance experts say FEMA's flood insurance program has access to funds totaling $3.8 billion, much of it in loans. If flood claims exhaust the fund, Congress may have to step in with additional taxpayer money. That will add...

Staten Island resident John Tabacco told Neil Cavuto this morning that Staten Island is still alone. ** There is no federal help. ** The feds just drive by with their clipboards. ** We just found three more dead people in the pile this morning.John Tabacco on the situation in Staten Island: “This morning we’re distributing stuff here and we’re helping people dig out and we hear the sanitation guys scream out that there are bodies in the pile. Everybody jumps on the pile and starts pulling away debris. And, unfortunately, probably not reported right now, it was probably an hour...

Obama at FEMA: "We still have a long way to go"By Lucy Madison/ CBS News/ November 3, 2012, 12:42 PM President Obama on Saturday acknowledged the nation has "a long way to go" in the aftermath following Superstorm Sandy, but pledged the administration will be putting in a "120 percent effort" to ensure the impacted regions get the assistance they need. Mr. Obama, speaking after a briefing about ongoing recovery efforts at the FEMA headquarters in Washington, D.C., emphasized his commitment to restoring power, pumping flooded areas, removing debris, and attending to the needs of those impacted by the storm,...

<p>FEMA's vaunted "lean forward" strategy that called for advanced staging of supplies for emergency distribution failed to live up to its billing in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.</p> <p>In fact, the agency appears to have been completely unprepared to distribute bottled water to Hurricane Sandy victims when the storm hit this Monday. In contrast to its stated policy, FEMA failed to have any meaningful supplies of bottled water -- or any other supplies, for that matter -- stored in nearby facilities as it had proclaimed it would on its website. This was the case despite several days advance warning of the impending storm.</p>

The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has placed a rush order of two million meals to be delivered to Floyd Bennett New York Harbor Parks, and Lakehurst New Jersey. The solicitation was placed at 2:30 pm EST on 2 November 2012, with a response time of no later than 8 pm on the same day. The solicitation was amended less than four hours later for providers to provide a quote of four million meals, preferably of the self-heating variety. The request is for self-heating Meals Ready to Eat (MRE) with a 13-month...

FEMA's vaunted "lean forward" strategy that called for advanced staging of supplies for emergency distribution failed to live up to its billing in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. In fact, the agency appears to have been completely unprepared to distribute bottled water to Hurricane Sandy victims when the storm hit this Monday. In contrast to its stated policy, FEMA failed to have any meaningful supplies of bottled water -- or any other supplies, for that matter -- stored in nearby facilities as it had proclaimed it would on its website. This was the case despite several days advance warning...

Now that we have watched the politicians patting each other on the back for their first day response, taking photo ops with the afflicted, and jetting off to their warm homes, it is time to begin the evaluation process. The biggest question I have on my mind as the government scrambles to bring in supplies is this. We knew this storm was going to hit the East Coast for five days. How many supplies...food, gas, water, and blankets...did FEMA move into place BEFORE the storm hit?

Union halting power repair crews is top Democratic donorPaul Bedard - Washington Secrets November 2, 2012 | 12:36 pm The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, cited in news reports for halting nonunion repair crews from helping to restore power in superstorm Sandy's New Jersey-New York path, is one of nation's top union donors to Democrats, a group President Obama last year praised in a visit to an IBEW training Center. The Center for Responsive Politics, a public political spending watchdog, said IBEW has the nation's fifth highest spending political action committee, doling out nearly $2.3 million, 97 percent of which...

I've seen an estimate that there is/was up to 300 million gallons of water in NY subway system. Katrina? "The unwatering team successfully removed 250 billion gallons of water from Orleans, St. Bernard and Jefferson parishes after Katrina " http://www.nola.com/hurricane/index.ssf/2012/10/new_orleans_corps_employees_jo.html Sandy, though wide, was not Katrina... FEMA ain't close to handling a large storm.

The federal agency has received praise from politicians and storm survivors alike for being prepared before the storm and responsive immediately afterwards - two things the agency was not when Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast in 2005. ......."FEMA is a very different organization than it was during Katrina," says Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut. Lieberman chairs the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which helped spur post-Katrina reforms at the agency. Those changes, Lieberman says, have proved themselves during Sandy. "[FEMA] was proactive, and it didn't used to be. It doesn't wait for the storm to hit, it...

Two days after President Obama flew into storm-ravaged New Jersey on Wednesday for a 90 minute photo op with Governor Christie, parts of the state have descended into what one local resident calls "an apocalyptic vision." On Friday, in an exclusive interview with Breitbart News, this New Jersey resident described the situation there: New Jersey right now is experiencing an apocalyptic vision. Gas lines are a mile long. Hundreds are standing in line with gas cans. Fights are breaking out. Police and national guard have been called out. I've not had power or taken a shower since Sunday. Pray for...

In New York City, lines can be miles long waiting for gasoline. Fights, muggings, and store lootings have risen dramatically as the racehorse complexed inhabitants in The City So Nice They Named It Twice are already rumbling. The  muted response of  Obama's Federal Emergency Management Agency is yet another problem plaguing those citizens, because of a seeming slowness to manage the many post hurricane problems, like power outages, flooded homes, water born diseases, raw sewage, industrial chemicals and only God-knows-what else. In the meantime, little Napoleon, NY Mayor Bloomberg, is diverting rehab resources toward setting up the New York Marathon. New Yorkers normally are...

Leadership: After the president rushed back to the White House to watch the Weather Channel, pundits said he acted "presidential" — as if he'd be judged by the last four days and not the last four years. Acting presidential is one thing and being presidential quite another. Touring disaster areas is what every president finds himself doing sometime during his administration. In the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy, President Obama is doing all the right things, such as telling FEMA to do what it's already tasked to do, even as the sequestration he pushed as part of the Budget Control Act...

Leadership: After the president rushed back to the White House to watch the Weather Channel, pundits said he acted "presidential" — as if he'd be judged by the last four days and not the last four years. Acting presidential is one thing and being presidential quite another. In the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy, President Obama is doing all the right things, such as telling FEMA to do what it's already tasked to do, even as the sequestration he pushed as part of the Budget Control Act threatens to cut $900 million from the agency's budget. Pledging to cut red tape,...